The group Global Zero recently released a report assessing nuclear weapons spending worldwide. Their findings indicate that over the next decade, governments will significantly increase their nuclear weapons spending, eventually surpassing $1 trillion over the next decade.

While this figure is significant, it must also be taken with a grain of salt. First, the trillion dollar figure is what Global Zero calls the “full cost” of nuclear weapons, as opposed to the “core cost.” Core costs refer to “researching, developing, procuring, testing, operating, maintaining and upgrading the nuclear arsenal.” Full costs are derived from a more holistic approach, including “unpaid/deferred environmental and health costs, missile defenses assigned to defend nuclear weapons, nuclear threat reduction, and incident management”. The report’s figure for the core cost of nuclear weapons over the next decade rests at about $670 million, therefore falling short of the $1 trillion dollar figure.

Another concern is that the report’s figures have a wide margin of error. Quantifying even broad defense spending for countries like Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea is problematic, and as such, speculating about their total nuclear spending is near impossible. Global Zero admits this, but fairly argues that these programs are “small enough that inaccuracies in estimates would have negligible effect on the general conclusion.” At current levels, “the nine nuclear weapons countries are spending approximately one trillion dollars per decade.”

Methodological concerns aside, what the report succinctly expresses is that world-wide investment in nuclear weapons is greater than ever.

It seems that every piece of Cold-War era nuclear technology is reaching its expiration date simultaneously. Cash-strapped nations are being forced to decide whether to undertake costly modernization programs for their nuclear ballistic missile submarines, dual-capable aircraft, warheads, and nuclear facilities.

Even as the Obama administration proposes to trim defense spending by $400 billion over the next decade and the Pentagon is undertaking a review of U.S. nuclear deterrence requirements, it plans to spend approximately $213 billion on the modernization of nuclear weapons and their supporting infrastructure over the next decade. This price tag includes, among other things, refurbishing and extending the life of the B61 nuclear bomb, construction of new nuclear facilities at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, and a new nuclear ballistic missile submarine (known as the SSBN(X).  

As the Global Zero report states, the United States accounts for more than half of the world’s nuclear defense spending in both the full and core cost categories. Meanwhile, Russia plans to spend $70 billion on new strategic arms through 2020, a figure which makes up 10% of its overall defense budget. According to Global Zero founder Bruce Blair, “modernization is progressing at such a pace we are seeing more spending on nuclear weapons than at any time since the Cold War.”

With most of the world mired in an unprecedented period of financial strain, Global Zero included a telling graphic in their report on what just 1 nuke, out of the roughly 25,000 world wide, could buy: 400 college scholarships, 78 jobs for firefighters, health coverage for 36,000 low income Americans, or 99,000ft of solar panels.

Global Zero’s report compels us to reconsider the cost-effectiveness of these weapons, and re-chart the current trillion dollar path in a safer and more fiscally responsible direction.

Two significant news this week: 1. Ambassador Sung Kim is the first ethnic Korean to become U.S. Ambassador to Seoul. Click here for more. 2. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated that Washington is willing to engage North Korea if Pyongyang …

Recently, former C.I.A. director R. James Woolsey warned of  President Obama’s underhanded attempts to purchase Russian cooperation on missile defense with sensitive U.S. missile defense technology. Mr. Woolsey argued against ceding critical defense secrets and operational “red button” authority to an unpredictable rival at a time when the United States faces a heightened threat from Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Of course, the Obama administration has no intention of giving Russia such red-button rights.

U.S. negotiations with Russia on missile defense cooperation have centered largely on the potential sharing of early warning data on missile launches from other states such as Iran. Under discussion is a Joint Data Fusion Center, which would mitigate the risk of false alarms or miscalculation and allow NATO officers to access early-warning data on missile launches from Russian radar sights along the Iranian border.

Mr. Woolsey’s anxiety about any kind of missile defense cooperation with Russia is surprising in light of the more geopolitically astute assessment he offered in 2009, as one of twelve members of the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States:

“For more than a decade the development of U.S. ballistic missile defenses has been guided by the principles of (1) protecting against limited strikes while (2) taking into account the legitimate concerns of Russia and China about strategic stability. These remain sound guiding principles. Defenses sufficient to sow doubts in Moscow or Beijing about the viability of their deterrents could lead them to take actions that increase the threat to the United States and its allies and friends . . .

. . . Cooperative missile defense efforts with allies should be strengthened and opportunities for missile defense cooperation with Russia should be further explored.”[emphasis mine]

Though only Woolsey can explain his change of heart, we can only assume that at some point between 2009 and 2011 bilateral cooperation became a zero-sum game and the Russian Federation degenerated into the “evil empire” of 1983…

Woolsey paints a picture in which Iran “continues to expand the scale, reach and sophistication of its ballistic missile forces, many of which are inherently capable of carrying a nuclear payload.”  While Iran’s missile development programs are a concern, Woolsey misrepresents intelligence reports about how quickly an Iranian ICBM threat is likely to develop. According to Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence official:

“[Woolsey] realizes that the ‘most-likely’ timeline for emergence of an Iranian ICBM continues to slip. He has consequently set aside this inconvenient truth in trying to make his case against the administration’s missile defense policies, which are actually structured to adapt to changes in the threat.”

An accurate understanding of the geopolitical context surrounding European missile defense demands a reassessment not only of Iranian nuclear technology, but also our own. According to Yousaf Butt, a physicist in the High-Energy Astrophysics Division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, current U.S. missile-defense interceptors can be hoodwinked by simple tactics and readily available technology like inflatable balloon decoys or stormy weather. The harsh reality is that European long-range missile defense remains unproven at best against long-range threats armed with simple decoys or countermeasures.

Despite Woolsey’s opposition, cooperative missile defense efforts with Russia have bipartisan support in Congress, which appears poised to voice its support for the administration’s plans. The FY 2011 Defense Authorization Act, which passed the Senate and House by unanimous consent last December, contains a Sense of Congress on missile defense that includes the following:

“(3) to support the efforts of the United States Government and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to pursue cooperation with the Russian Federation on ballistic missile defense relative to Iranian missile threats.”

In addition, the FY 2012 defense bill written by the Senate Armed Services Committee last week,

“expresses the Sense of Congress in support of efforts of the United States to pursue missile defense cooperation with Russia that would enhance the security of the United States, its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, and Russia, in a manner that is reciprocal and does not limit U.S. missile defense capabilities. The provision also requires the President to submit a report on the status of efforts to agree on such cooperation, including steps to safeguard classified U.S. information.”

Although discussions between the U.S. and Russia on missile defense have stumbled as of late, cooperation on early warning data would represent a promising leap beyond the traditional geopolitical paradigm of mutual deterrence and potentially open new backchannels in Russian-American strategic relations – a hope that President Reagan first articulated in 1986 at the historic Reykjavik summit.

Woolsey’s misinformed critique seems determined to conjure nightmares about Iranian ICBM capabilities, while ignoring the valuable benefits of U.S. and Russian cooperation on missile defense to combat the Iranian threat. Such cooperation offers a rare and valuable opportunity to improve and strengthen the U.S.-Russia relationship.

The sixth of occasional postings
Guest Post by Afghanistan Ag Man

As Obama prepares to deliver a major policy speech on Afghanistan tonight, I want to share some thoughts on where we stand from my vantage point. I may have more to say after the speech.

The fighting season is in full swing, but it is much different than last year.

Many of the strongholds that the insurgency enjoyed last year are gone. Once ambivalent, many villages are now showing full-fledged support for their local government officials. And many of the financial resources that propped up the insurgency in years past are gone, due to a poor poppy harvest.

Despite these successes, Taliban insurgents remain as ruthless and inhuman as ever. Last year, the strategy of the insurgency was to primarily attack military bases; implant indiscriminate improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in orchards; and create vehicle-borne IEDs to crash into markets, government buildings, and into other vehicles containing key Afghan leaders.

The new modus operandi of the Taliban insurgency? Brutal assassinations that target not only police chiefs and government officials, but also methodically target effective, anti-insurgent maliks (village leaders) in remote, rural areas.

Within the last month, eleven maliks have been killed in my area of operation alone. The malik represents a community’s interests on councils, lobbies government officials for resources, and provides leadership and stability in the face of the insurgency. Two of these men—Haji Irfan and Haji Mohammad Abdul*—were especially good men who ultimately gave their life for a cause that was bigger than themselves: a peaceful Afghanistan.

Those that knew these two men will share stories of their deep character, bravery, and leadership. From an American perspective, this is my small attempt to tell their story and depict their senseless end.

Haji Irfan was a good man who lived in southern Afghanistan for well over eighty years. He was old—perhaps the oldest man in his district. His mind was not as sharp as it once was, but he was always very happy and had a smile. In fact, the last time I would seesaw Haji Irfan alive, he sat next to me at a local development shura. He wanted to take a picture with me so he could carry it around in his pocket; his expression in the snapshot is, ironically, the only time I saw him somber (as is the traditional way for Afghan men to take a picture!).

Haji Irfan was a well-respected and widely-known figure in the district not only for his age, but also for his relatively mild demeanor. Some villages have maliks that are viewed as merely “symbolic, ” where the malik serves as the official representative of a village to the government, but has no real power among his villagers.  On the other hand, an “actual” malik often serves as a shadow figure that wields power and carries significant sway among villagers, but does not participate in official government shuras and councils (often due to this individual’s ties to both insurgents and the government). Haji Irfan commanded both symbolic and actual titles among his villagers and his government. He was a good man.

I learned about Haji Irfan’s death when I came back to my post from a field assignment. He was driving down a road when insurgents stopped his car. Armed men asked specifically for Haji Irfan, which reveals that they were foreign to the area—as anyone who had lived in this district would immediately recognize Haji Irfan.

Willingly—and I imagine, bravely—Haji Irfan walked out of the vehicle and stood in the roadway. There was a brief conversation, after which the insurgents shot him in the head with a single bullet. They left his body on the roadway for his children—who sat in the car with their mother while the insurgents committed their dastardly murder—to load their dead father into the vehicle.

Haji Mohammad Abdul was a wily malik compared to Haji Irfan, one that I worked briefly yet closely with. I first met him when I was on a patrol just outside his village in the spring. The troops I was embedded with were new to the area of operation and did not know who he was. Because he was accompanied by several of his young nephews and sons (usually a sign of insurgent movement), our patrol had a lot of questions—only to find out he was a local malik and these boys comically served as his small, misfit group of guards.

Haji Mohammad Abdul had another distinguishing feature: a fake leg, which earned him instant credit among the patrol. After assuring the troops of his identity through his government-issued taskira (national identification card), he left us with a gap-toothed grin.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I would work well with him. Haji Mohammad Abdul’s village was located just outside of an area that got notable national attention due to the “village rebuild efforts” of the US Army.  This neighboring village was laden with so many improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that all the residents left for other villages, and the only safe solution was to level the area by airstrike.

The US Army—set on rebuilding a community—returned and employed local nationals to rebuild the village. Due to the focus on the rebuild, however, Haji Mohammad Abdul’s village had been overlooked. He was an effective malik because he was successful in keeping transient insurgents out of his village. As a nod to his success, I was asked by the local commander to come give special agricultural assistance to Haji Mohammad Abdul’s village.

In the second shura I had with his village, he invited over neighboring villagers to meet “the farmer from America.” I spent the next two hours fending off question after question about agriculture: lime sulfur application, pruning techniques, root rot, aphid infestations, narrow range oil applications, etc. After surviving this Afghan version of Great Britain’s “Prime Minister’s Questions” and several glasses of chai, they all started laughing: Haji Mohammad Abdul had set me up and told his neighbors to combatively test my knowledge of agricultural—and I passed, thankfully.

As I left Haji Mohammad Abdul’s compound, he still wore a mischievous grin. I would like to say we had a heart-to-heart in which I expressed my respect for his fierce opposition to the insurgency and my deep admiration for the level of protection he afforded his family and neighbors. But I didn’t. Perhaps this was a subconscious defense mechanism so as not to get attached to anyone here and to live ignorantly (and blissfully) in the idea that everyone I work with will be safe. Or perhaps I genuinely believed he was invulnerable.

I left Haji Mohammad Abdul with a simple “Alaikum Assalam,” ironically a wish for peace to be upon him.

I would learn later that an insurgent jumped over the qalat (or compund) wall of Haji Mohammad Abdul, broke into his home, and shot him in his one remaining leg. He was rushed to a hospital in Kandahar City where—after several days—he died of a heart attack attributed to the wound.

These stories exemplify the level of sacrifice many maliks and government officials make each day. Yes, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is flawed, corrupt in many ways, and often ineffective in providing many basic needs of average Afghans. And yes, there are just as many corrupt and thieving maliks that sympathize with the insurgency and steal from their own communities as there are selfless and decent ones.

Those that are committed to resisting the increasingly brutal and senseless insurgency, however, should be noted and honored.

It is because of men like Haji Irfan and Haji Mohammad Abdul that I vehemently disagree with an expedited troop withdrawal and arbitrary timetables for withdrawal. Without a doubt, premature removal of foreign forces will cause displacement of current troops, leave many “hold” areas vulnerable to slipping back into the “clear” stage, and lead to a significant uptick in assassinations of local leaders that are merely holding out against a destructive insurgent force.

I admit that my view is jaded by the events on the ground here. Recently I witnessed my grief-stricken district governor find out that yet another very old and very respected malik had been kidnapped by two gunmen on motorcycles, executed, and then dumped in an alley of Kandahar City.

That same district governor—knowing I spend most of my time working in orchards and fields—handed me a bracelet for “good luck.” With such an experience, I cannot help but identify with his fearful emotions of an Afghanistan that could perpetually fall into an animalistic pattern of assassination and intimidation.

Is the current military and development strategy working as well as it could? No. Is the budget for development projects bloated, somewhat feudal, and unsustainable? Perhaps.

But is it necessary for foreign security forces to stay here for the foreseeable future as a residual “enforcement mechanism”? Yes. And should civilian-led capacity building (not merely “nation building” through large-scale infrastructure projects, but true mentorship of Afghan government officials) continue? Unequivocally yes—and I predict this will be the goal of Operation Enduring Freedom moving forward.

*The actual names of the murdered maliks have been changed, locations have been altered, and a time delay in posting this blog has been made to ensure the safety of the victims’ families.

Earlier this year, Julian Borger reported on a provocative piece of news that appeared on the Gerdab website, run by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). The piece addresses the day after Iran’s first nuclear test, stating in a satirical tone that, “The day after Islamic Republic of Iran’s first nuclear test will be an ordinary day for us Iranians but in the eyes of some of us there will be a new sparkle.”

It is possible that Borger and others may have gone a little far in their interpretation of the article’s existence.  

Fast forward a couple of months and a couple of flame wars (see here and here for background) and it turns out that the piece was not actually related to the IRGC at all, but was written by an ordinary Iranian.

Today, Borger released an interview with Seyed Ali Pourtabatabaei, a journalist from Qom who says he wrote the piece.  Apparently, Pourtabatabaei’s post was picked up by an Iranian college student working for Gerdab whose job it is to repost at least five articles a day. The student liked the piece.  

Countless polls seem to show that Iran’s nuclear program garners support from the masses, which, while often misguided on the part of the masses, is an important factor in Iranian politics. Pourtabatabaei identifies himself as a reformist who is critical of the current regime, but supportive of the Islamic Republic, much like many supporters of the 1979 revolution who may not have gotten exactly what they bargained for. In his remarks to the Guardian, Pourtabatabaei does not blame the regime for its obstinance. He’s not angry that the regime’s continued refusal to cooperate in any productive way has led to crippling sanctions on its people, or that the regime has the power to make a change and does not. Pourtabatabaei is angry because Iran has not, as of yet, succeeded in developing a nuclear weapon. “I think sanctions will just continue until the end of days,” he says, “and they make us so angry. We don’t need nuclear weapons otherwise, but if we are going to have these sanctions, we should do a nuclear test to bring them to an end.”

Borger is able to explain this statement in a little more detail:

I asked how a nuclear test would end sanctions, and it emerged that what he meant was that if Iran was going to be under sanctions anyway, it might as well have a bomb and get some respect, and provide a counter-balance to the Israeli arsenal. He would view it as a regrettable necessity, as he believes nuclear weapons are ultimately futile.

Borger goes on to ask Pourtabatabaei about a topic he had previously seen as taboo in Iran, talking about nuclear weapons:

In the media and in formal situations there are rules against saying such things. But in Iran, in our blogs, we speak about them freely. Many people think this way. Many people in Iran think we already have a nuclear weapon, because of what they hear at Friday prayers. It is a wish: we would be stronger in our region – strong like Israel or like India and Pakistan. If we had a nuclear weapon there would be a balance.

Of course, there are many possible reasons for this view in Iran: misinformation and control of the media by the state, national pride, fear of an outside attack, the list goes on. It is not always clear in polls if Iranian support is limited to a purely civilian nuclear program or extends to a weapon as well, and (I can’t stress enough) Pourtabatabaei is just one Iranian, but his piece does raise an interesting question.

The true effect of sanctions is based on their ability to influence those one wishes to coerce. In this case, the target is the Iranian regime. Unfortunately, most economic sanctions end up targeting a given regime through its people, thus forcing the target to base its decision on the level of public outrage that results. At this point, it becomes a propaganda game, and if there is one thing the Iranian regime understands quite well, it is propaganda.

At this point it is unclear to me what, if anything, is being done to turn Iranian opinion in favor of the US and against the regime (short of propping up the MEK and imposing more sanctions). I could be wrong, but it seems that an important piece of the puzzle might be missing.